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Loading...In my recent Huffington Post article I try to explain why it *matters* that the early followers of Jesus began calling him God, and I try to make the case that it matters not only for Christians (most of whom think Jesus *is* God, so that the development of that doctrine is obviously important) but for all of us, Christian or non-Christian, who are interested in the history of our civilization. My statement to that end has been misunderstood by several, maybe lots (?), of readers, and I need to explain what I mean and do not mean. Here is what I say in the article:
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Please read this…I think what you are doing is important:
Now scholars think that the Buddha was born about 650 BCE and that Taoist belief began 2,000 years or more before the birth of Jesus. The Maya civilization was thriving without any knowledge of Jesus or that Jesus was declared God. You can look all over the world and see thriving civilizations in China and India and in the Americas without ever once having a knowledge that Jesus was thought to be The One True God over all the universe. Buddhists do not believe in any God and Buddha was not God and they have one of the most compassionate philosophies there is.
It was only in the Western World that this became a game-changer for civilization, and after Constantine, I’m not so sure how good it was. Christianity became a **political** power and untold millions upon millions died in wars and atrocities in his name including the Holocaust.
That isn’t good in my opinion.
If Jesus wasn’t declared God, we might have a far better world. Even pagans are usually seen now days as persons who revel in the wonders of the natural world and are environmentally focused, as are so many humanists and agnostics (as yourself) and atheists.
As for me, I think Jesus was a “cool dude,” as some say. He had a great philosophy and was “touched” by the Infinite, in my opinion. I do not believe that he was God.
As for me, I am currently viewing the new *Cosmos* and I have three telescopes and I do astro-photography and I doing some readings in “Quantum Physics For Dummies” type books and I truly think that “God” may be something altogether different than what Christian and Jews imagine…something more in-touch with the whole universe and universes.
I appreciate being a member of this blog and for reading your books….you have made me look in other directions to find the Infinite.
Jesus doesn’t have to BE God to be in touch with the Infinite in the universe. It seems to me that so many people worship a small God, one who is more concerned about taking attendance at church than in dealing with the big problems in creation: hunger, homelessness, depression, war, and all the other sufferings we humans and other animals experience.
Bart…please do not be upset at what people think… because you are making us think !!! That will lead to a better world. I am thankful for that.
Most excellent, indeed, Toddfredrick!
Excellent
Dr. Ehrman,
Have you gotten the chance to read How God became Jesus that Bird, Evans, and others co-authored as a self-described response to your book or see Evans’ YouTube video description (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YC1GyMXDfzM)? I remember watching some of your debates with Evans from a couple of years ago. They certainly wasted no time getting their book out! Did your publisher voluntarily provide a manuscript to these guys?
-Steve
Yes, I may spend some time discussing it. Yes, we gave them my manuscript.
Please do discuss it!
Good clarification, but it seemed clear to me in your previous post.
To me too! But not to everyone else….
“How did that happen? How did we get from a Jewish apocalyptic preacher — who ended up on the wrong side of the law and was crucified for his efforts — to the Creator of all things and All-powerful Lord?”
Curious what you mean by Jesus being ‘on the wrong side of the law’? Do you think that Jesus was opposed to the common or authoritative interpretation of Moses’ law of his day? If so, how? Or, are you just using a figure of speech to say that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and that the Jewish leaders merely opposed him out of convenience and not wanting to upset the status quo with their Roman benefactors? Or something else?
I mean on the wrong side of Roman law. The legal authorities ordered him executed for insurrection.
Something I’ve wondered about: I’ve encountered people commenting that the only thing religion (by “religion” meaning the Abrahamic religions) did was take totally obvious moral teachings that everyone believes in anyway and codify them, the implication being that nothing new or important was ever introduced by religion (again, “religion” meaning the Abrahamic religions).
To which I’ve always replied that these may seem like totally obvious moral teachings to us because our society is so deeply steeped in the moral teachings of the Abrahamic religions.
But I’ve wondered what some the differences were between the moral teachings of Judaism and that of the pagan societies surrounding it (which I gather tended to see morality as a question for philosophy rather than religion), the sort of things that might have become a different set of “totally obvious moral teachings that everyone believes in anyway” had Christianity not taken over the Roman Empire and thus the Abrahamic religions not taken over the Western world.
That’s a great reply. And a great question. Maybe I’ll post on it. One thing is that the idea that you should love your neighbor, as opposed to dominate him, was not “common sense” in most societies of antiquity.
I’d definitely be interested!
On a somewhat related note: what about the Pax Romana, which also fell into that period? And maybe also the fact that Cesar Augustus was also called by some, just like Jesus, the/a Son of God? Wasn’t this also a ‘battle’ of two different views on how peace could be reached?
I’m not sure if Christians saw their view as an alternative to a Pax Romana (in part because no one at the time thought they were *in* the Pax romana, any more than people realized they were in the Middle Ages….) But yes, this was very much a competition.
Declaring someone to be a ‘divine being’ is not the same as declaring him to be ‘YHWH’ (the Creator of Everything) though, is it?
And weren’t the ‘Angel of the Lord’ or the ‘Angel of Death’ in the OT divine beings (and/or maybe even YHWH himself in some instances) too?
No, the Christians (for the most part) did not call Jesus YHWH. But they did think that he was the one through whom all things were created.
So they saw ‘Jesus’ as a kind of ‘tool’ for/of ‘YHWH’? Or what does ‘through whom’ mean?
Yes, they wouldn’t have used the term tool, but he was the instrument through which God created all things.
“But God knows what that would have been….”
Now there’s a sentence that shocked me!!
It is amazing–and unsettling–how a small group of people can have an idea about someone…and then with a few turns of events, some passionate characters, and interesting timing–2000 years later…ALL THIS.
I loved the book, thank you for putting your smarts and heart into it.
I’m about 200 pages into ‘How Jesus Became God’, terrific book, many items for reflection and contemplation. I am pausing to write after reading the section on the ‘doubt tradition.’ Could a part of this tradition be rooted in the fact that the 11 were not there when Jesus was executed, but all fled in fear?
Yup, that’s tied in I think.
Dear Bart,
I think you and others would like to know that, after just glancing at some of the discussions taking place in the comments section of reviewers at Amazon.com, there are a lot of people having serious discussions about the topics raised in your latest book. You have once again succeeded in your mission of getting (some) people to think critically. Bravo!
Even as I am enjoying this book, as I have many of your previous efforts, I have to disagree that it is important to understand why JC became god for the reasons you cite. Even if all that you say and more is true, it does not follow that knowing WHY this happened is necessarily important to understanding the consequences (i.e. Western History). I would argue—and indeed, aside from a powerful interest in all mythology, it is my primary motivation—that knowing why is more important to the study of how we a species can avoid such a process in the future than it is to understanding how it affected the past.
The most important question now is whether the next 2000 years will be ruled by religious dogma or by reason. Unfortunately, the fundamentalist Christians and Muslims are going for the former, but I’m hoping for the latter.
Just finished reading Chapter 4, and I have to make a few comments!
I agree that we can’t say with certainty either that there was or wasn’t a discovery of an empty tomb. But I still think it more probable that there was, because I find it hard to believe “visions” alone would have convinced a sufficient number of people that Jesus had been raised from the dead.
You make great points against the “empty tomb” tradition. But consider these possibiities…
The Sanhedrin’s having rushed to convene (however many got there) late at night suggests they didn’t know how long Pilate would be in Jerusalem the next day. So Pilate may well have left before someone – call him Joseph of Arimathea – went, perhaps an hour or two before sundown, to claim the body. Possibly, all he really had to do was bribe the person in charge of the execution site.
You mention only four “natural-cause” possibilities people have suggested for the tomb’s being found empty: the disciples stole the body, the Romans moved it, the women went to the wrong tomb, or Jesus had merely been in a coma, and revived.
I’ve long favored another possibility: that Joseph had never meant the entombment in his family tomb to be permanent, but the disciples and Jesus’s other followers didn’t understand that.
As I imagine it, Joseph wanted to put the body in a secure place before the Sabbath. He’d expected to give it to the disciples *after* the Sabbath. But when he couldn’t find them during the day, he realized they’d gone into hiding. So after the next sundown brought an end to the Sabbath, he and his workmen retrieved the body…and took it to Nazareth. But they found that Jesus’s kin there had also gone into hiding. So they wound up giving the body to the Nazareth rabbi, who agreed to provide a decent, reverent burial on condition they keep it secret. That would explain why Joseph never shot down the “resurrection” story: he wasn’t free to reveal where Jesus had ultimately been buried.
About the “empty tomb” story not appearing in the earliest sources? Perhaps it had convinced Jesus’s followers that a miracle had taken place, but every non-believer who’d heard it had said, “Of course the tomb was empty – his disciples had moved the body!” The “empty tomb” story might have become, briefly, infamous – a joke. But years later, in writings intended for the faithful, it was taken seriously again.
OK,maybe. But then when everyone was saying that Jesus was raised, why didn’t Joseph show them the tomb? (And if there was a known empty tomb, why didn’t the Christians later remember where it was and celebrate it as a place?)
As I imagine it, Joseph may have returned from Nazareth to find this wild idea already in circulation. Perhaps he tried to shoot it down, but people who wanted to believe in a resurrection refused to listen to him. Their response was that he was trying to suppress the truth because he didn’t want his family and their tomb publicly linked with Jesus. And in fact, he undoubtedly would have been concerned about that! So after a few days, he would have refused to say anything beyond “No comment.”
It would certainly be easier to explain devotees’ jumping to the “resurrection” conclusion if they’d been given some reason to expect a resurrection. Perhaps someone – even if not Jesus himself – had been openly speculating that if his enemies killed him before he’d completed his mission, God might raise him from the dead?
I think it’s understandable that the location of the tomb might not have been remembered. If Joseph tried to distance himself from the “empty tomb” story…the story itself went “in and out of vogue,” perhaps not being mentioned for decades at a time…and it wasn’t among the sites that appealed to Constantine’s mother Helena.
Joseph of Arimathea was from Arimathea, not Nazareth. This is (allegedly) a member of the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, his living place, unrelated to Joseph of Nazareth.
Oh yes, I know that. What I meant was that he’d taken Jesus’s body to Nazareth, expecting he’d find family or friends of Jesus who’d want him buried there. And my guess was that he *wouldn’t* find family or friends, and the local rabbi would agree to bury Jesus there (in Nazareth), on condition it be kept secret. Because Jesus *was* a crucified “criminal,” and all these people were nervous about being publicly associated with him. Joseph had probably only gotten involved in the first place because he shared Jesus’s apocalyptic beliefs.
All speculation, of course!
I don’t think people travelled with decomposing bodies. (It was a 7-day walk to Nazareth, or so!)
“I don’t think people travelled with decomposing bodies. (It was a 7-day walk to Nazareth, or so!)”
Assume the body to be in something we’d call a makeshift “coffin” – and Joseph, of course, accompanied by a half-dozen or so workmen, possibly his slaves. (I don’t believe a member of the Sanhedrin would have physically handled the body himself, at *any* point.)
Yes, I know Palestinian Jews weren’t buried in coffins then. For those well enough off to have tombs, it was the brief ossuary-box period. And I assume “ordinary” people were just put into the ground.
But there must have been occasions when someone died at a distance – but not a totally unreasonable distance – from his or her home town. Suppose a Galilean man had gone to Jerusalem for Passover, with family and friends, and he died of a heart attack while they were there. I can’t believe the “family and friends” wouldn’t have managed to take his remains back to Galilee with them.
My sense is that people were typically buried wherever they died, given the massive problems of immediate decomposition.
I can only imagine how many emails you get regarding your books!
Then you have a very big imagination….
You don’t get many? I would have thought given the topic you’d have alot of conservative Christians would bombard you with emails!
No, I mean I get TONS.
It’s interesting to imagine who different the world would be if Jesus had not become God. I think what really changed things – was not that Jesus became God but he became the ONLY GOD that the church allowed.
I know that there are many good things that came from Christianity but I can’t help wondering what they destroyed from other religions and cultures that would’ve enriched us in many more ways. Just think of the great minds that they snuffed out only because the were Jews, Arabs, pagans and other.
Hi Dr. Ehrman,
I suppose it is just speculation as to how history might have gone had Jesus not become God. Imagine all the art whether music, drama, novels, paintings, sculptures would NOT have been created if that had not been. But, alas, it did take place and still abides in the minds of two billion people, and it is not likely to go away. For me, I am with Sam Harris and I would like to see the end of all Faith. We need good reason to survive as a species. It will only be a matter of time when religion does matter in a hugely negative way. Let’s hope not, but I do think it is imminent.
Personally I don’t even for a moment believe Jesus was even a part of God..except in the same way each of us is a part of God . I am amazed that the early church would even have tolerated such a belief since the Jews were a people of a “one God”.
I believe Paul was the actual author of such a belief since he was the “apostle to the Gentiles”. Then later the writers of the synoptic gospels incorporated that belief into their writings.
The early church evidently accommodated the Gentiles by incorporating much of their pagan belief into early Christianity.